The Grand Prize in Obama’s War on Coal™

Watts Up With That? ^ | June 30, 2013 | Willis Eschenbach

[neverdem]

It’s a bad week for poor people around the planet. First, and with great fanfare, our President unleashed his patented climate plan, affectionately known as Obama’s War on Coal™. He hasn’t said yet how much Obama’s War on Coal™ will cost, but we can be sure that it will not be cheap. And as in any war, it is guaranteed that the poor will suffer the most.

Sadly, this was followed by even worse news. The World Bank has decided it wants to keep the developing world from having inexpensive electricity. They will not make any more loans for coal-fired power plants.

You remember “inexpensive electricity”? When I was a kid, the US Government used to be in favor of inexpensive electricity, because it was rightly seen as the savior of the poor farmer and the poor housewife. That’s why the Tennessee Valley Authority came to be. I wash the clothes around our house, and I don’t do it by hand. I have inexpensive energy to do that. Now, however, the government and the environmental NGOs and the climate alarmists are doing every single thing that they can to make energy more expensive. And the World Bank has just officially joined the baying chorus.

The World Bank thinks that inexpensive energy will harm the poor … not now, of course, but in fifty years. And on that basis, the World Bank thinks it is justified to harm the poor now.

This is the madness at the base of the climate alarmists policy—it actively harms the poor now, with the justification that it might help their grandkids avoid harm in 50 years.

The wealthy fat-cats running the World Bank are unwilling for school kids in India to have cheap electricity to study by, on the grounds that it might, not will but might, make those students’ grandkids a bit warmer in a century. I doubt that the poor in India would vote for that plan, but I guess the World Bank is our economic paterfamilias who knows what the poor need, much better than the poor know themselves, and it’s not cheap electricity …

The same thing is going on in the US. Where I live, California, the resident burglars are called the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, known as PGE. They are a monopoly utility, and supposedly they are run for the benefit of the ratepayers.

Now, if you had a monopoly public utility for say water, and your water supplier said they were going to charge twenty times the going price for a glass of water if you were really, really thirsty, would you think that was in the public interest?

That’s exactly what’s happening to Anthony, PGE is gouging him on the price because that’s when he really needs the electricity … what kind of a screwed up world has this become? A public utility is supposed to provide cheap energy, not gouge the customers at the time they really need the electricity.

Now, the East Coast and the Powder River country is going to feel the pain, as coal-fired plants close and their electricity costs start to creep up. So, since war has been declared, let’s see if Obama’s War on Coal™ is worth the billions and billions of dollars it will cost … what are we buying for our money?

Well, fortunately I don’t have to go through all the math to figure it out. There is a strong supporter of the Obama climate plan named Chris Hope, who has done the math for us. His blog says:

Chris is a climate change policy researcher, PAGE model developer, and faculty member at Cambridge Judge Business School, interested in environment and energy.

He has used his whiz-bang model to do the calculations. His assumption is that the US will do the following

1) Lower the CO2 emissions to 83% of the 2008 level over the next seven years, and

2) Maintain that low level of emissions for the succeeding 80 years.

Now, absent a huge technological breakthrough or another depression, there’s little chance of us getting to 83% of 2008 emissions in the next seven years.

But that pales before the improbable idea of the US maintaining that low a level of emissions for the next 80 years.

So to start with, we see that Mr. Hope has made the most hopeful assumptions about the climate plan—first that it will meet its initial goal, and second that it will maintain that goal for over three-quarters of a century.

And with those likely unattainable assumptions, what does Mr. Hope calculate as the effect of Obama’s War on Coal™?

Well … um … well, he says that by the year 2100, nearly a century from now, that the temperatures will be much cooler.

…

How much cooler, you ask?

…

Well … two …

…

Two degrees C?

…

Er … no …

…

Oh … so, it’s two tenths of a degree C, then, not two degrees C?

…

Um … no.

…

I have to confess, in writing this I find that I am very reluctant to reveal the expected outcome of Obama’s War on Coal™ for a simple reason—it is at times like this that I’m embarrassed to be an American.

…

Because the reality is that Chris Hope, an ardent supporter of the War on Coal™, using the most optimistic (and unattainable) assumptions, says that IF we win the War on Coal and we put hundreds of people out of work and increase the cost of electricity for poor and wealthy alike (although obviously, Obama and his rich pals don’t care about the cost increase), here’s our prize. Here’s what Chris Hope says we’ve bought for the all the pain and suffering:

In the year 2100 the world might be 0.02°C cooler.

Two hundredths of a degree in a century. Maybe. That’s the prize. That’s what Chris Hope has proudly announced will be the reward for the job loss and the pain and suffering of the poor.

Two hundredths of a degree of cooling. An amount that is far below our ability to even measure …

Me, I think that that one fact alone should be our emblem and our rallying cry in opposition to this gob-smacking lunacy. So the next time someone says they think the War on Coal™ is a brilliant plan, gently point out to them that they are advocating spending billions and billions of dollars to cool the planet by two hundredths of a degree in the year 2100, and in the process harming the poor … and ask if that strikes them as the most rational of plans …

Or you could just shake them until their teeth rattle and say “You think we should spend billions of dollars to cool the planet two hundredths of a degree a century from now, while hurting the poor today? Have you gone barking mad? Billions for a reward that’s too small to be even measured, while pensioners shiver in fuel poverty? Unhand my wallet, you thieving varlet, and slink back to your hole!”

I swear, this unremitting attempt by Obama and the activists and the environmental NGOs to crush the poor back into their hovels, while they proudly declaim the noblest of motives, turns my stomach and threatens to fair unhinge my reason … how can they do that?

Billions and billions of dollars for two hundredths of a degree … bad news, folks, the Emperor not only has no clothes. He’s lost his mind entirely.

Grrrrr, bad for my blood pressure … in any case, here’s what coal did while Obama was declaring war on it …

[Bryanw92]

All of their meager estimates don’t even take into account the fact that people will start heating and cooking with wood, charcoal, and dung and that smoke will go up chimneys with no emissions controls whatsoever. The net result of taking away coal-powered electricity is more greenhouse gases than ever!

[The Great RJ]

This 0.02 degree of cooling could easily be offset by a single volcanic eruption about which we can do nothing. Our climate does does not have a tipping point...there are feedback mechanisms that have kept our climate on a relatively even keel for millennia. We have in the past seen massive global cooling which caused three ice ages where the northern hemisphere was basically covered by glaciers and global warming that melted those glaciers...all with no possible input from humankind. our puny measures to change CO2 concentrations by parts per million will not do anything.

[Red Badger]

When I was a kid they told us that nuclear energy would make electricity so cheap it wouldn’t even need a meter....................

[Red Badger]

Some states have outlawed fireplaces.
Some states have outlawed any burning at all on private land.
Some states have outlawed BBQ grills that use charcoal and lighter fluid.

Do you see a pattern developing here?.............

[Sender]

President Obama's Plan to Fight Climate Change

[thackney]

Do you know that Lewis Strauss was talking about Fusion, not Fission, nuclear energy when he said that in 1954?

[Red Badger]

No I didn’t know that. But it makes no difference, since neither has come about.........

[thackney]

By the way, “too cheap to meter” is another way of saying, so expensive to hook up, the fuel cost are insignificant...

[Red Badger]

Well, I'm still waiting for Mr. Fusion.............

[Brad from Tennessee]

[The World Bank has decided it wants to keep the developing world from having inexpensive electricity. They will not make any more loans for coal-fired power plants.]

Coal represented 25 percent of total U.S. exports in 2012.

[thackney]

Coal represented 25 percent of total U.S. exports in 2012.

Can you provide a little more info on that?

[thackney]

In 2012, the US exported 125,745,662 tons of coal.

http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pdf

Our total 2012 exports equaled $1,546,455,000,000.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2012pr/aip/related_party/rp12.pdf

Coal prices widely vary perhaps $75~150 per ton depending on quality, location, etc. Even at $150/ton, it would be about 1% of our exports.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Can you provide a little more info on that?]

I thought I read it the other day but when I Googled I couldn't find anything. I did find out that U.
S. exports last year were roughly $2 trillion while coal exports were around $16 billion. So I'm way off. Sorry.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Thanks for the links. I stand corrected.

[Smokin' Joe]

This is the madness at the base of the climate alarmists policy—it actively harms the poor now, with the justification that it might help their grandkids avoid harm in 50 years.

There won't be any grandkids if their grandparents freeze to death.

[Smokin' Joe]

Do you see a pattern developing here?.............

My mother had an euphemism for the total collapse of civilization: "burning the books".

I see books as fuel before long.

[Jumper]

One volcanic eruption can, and will, forever skew the data rendering insolvent....

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

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[1010RD]

This is a massive election opportunity for the GOP and not just in Coal Country. This is an attack on jobs and the poor and on economic liberty.

People no longer by into the ‘global warming’ hoax and climate change is a garbage word. They do view coal as dirty, but smart PR from coal producers and energy users could undermine that and pronto.

We need to start now, though, because you have to challenge the idea that coal is belching dirty black smoke into the air. Couple that we an economic liberty message and you win.